


The last dancer

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Baze was a dancer in his youth, Cassian is mentioned but is offstage, Gen, Jedhan Midwinter festival, Loss, Mourning, Remembrance of things past, commemoration, gift-giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 04:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15331251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: At Midwinter, the Jedhan survivors on Hoth gather to commemorate their dead and recreate an ancient traditional festival; and after 30 years as a fighter, the last of the celebrated dancers of the Temple of the Kyber prepares to perform his greatest role once again...





	The last dancer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skitzofreak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/gifts).



> Like "The taste of home" this is partly inspired by @skitzofreak's wonderful fic "You give me something" and the picture in that story of a magical Jedhan Midwinter Festival.

There’s a limit to how much he can warm up; it would be unwise to overdo things and go into the performance already tired.  Baze has rehearsed and rehearsed for two standard months solid.  And he’s warmed his muscles thoroughly with stretches and lunges, running on the spot, quick sequences of hand gestures.  He can touch his palms to his toes, tonight.  He fights the urge to run through a passage of footwork yet again; if he goes wrong now it won’t be for lack of practice. 

He stands on one leg.  Balances unwavering for long minutes while his arms swing from one pose to another.  It’s as good as he can get.  He’s ready.

He hadn’t danced for so long.  When he began to rehearse, every joint felt furred, cased in concretions of stiffness.  Yet strangely and sweetly, the moves had come back to him, and even, perhaps, something of the nuances. 

He doesn’t have a fan; not even a plain one for hot weather, much less a proper dancer’s fan with the long loose struts and purple bantha-wool tassel.  The hand gestures will have to do.  And though a pair of exercise pants make a passable replacement for the traditional close-fitting black trousers, he feels the lack of anklets.  But as Chirrut helps him fasten the pleated waist-robe of black cotton and the red sash, he looks at his reflection in the big ‘fresher mirror and thinks _Not bad; I don’t look too bad_ …

An old man, but one who still has the muscles, and the carriage, of a dancer.

An old man who tonight will dance again. 

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, watching his ribcage expand, the muscles of his abdomen flex and contract. 

His dreadlocks are pulled back and wound about with a scarlet hair tie.  The soles of his feet and the palms of his hands are painted with the correct good-luck symbols, rather wobbly in the drawing but recognisable.  Chirrut is hanging a second string of prayer beads round his neck. 

“You look very good,” he tells Baze.

Baze chuckles and gives the expected huff of “How can you tell?” as he pats the two rosaries, settling them in place.  The new set are Chirrut’s own beads, a matching pair with his.  He may not have anklets but the sound of bead strings clashing softly will be a music to him.

His husband leans forward; he lays his forehead on Baze’s broad chest as if it were a prayer wall, wraps his arms round him. “I don’t need to see.  You’re still the same man who moved everyone that watched him to tears when he danced The Griefs of Ena’ne.” 

“I was a boy then.  Not yet a man.” More than thirty years ago, long before the Occupation, when everyone still believed Jedha would be forever sacrosanct, holiest of holy places to fully half the sentient peoples of the galaxy.  When he was a teenaged soloist with the celebrated dancers of the Temple of the Kyber. 

Man and boy, he is their last inheritor now.

He stands holding Chirrut close, holding fast to the memories they share, the love and the lost things.

There’s a sound of footsteps outside, and a cautious knock at the door; Chirrut detaches himself saying “I’ll get it.  Don’t break your focus.”

_As if I ever had any true focus beyond you, love…_

Baze turns back to the glass, and to refining the lines of his eye make-up.

It’s strange to look at this tired face, putting on painted eyes, binding and decorating his hair, and remember the handsome young man who gazed back at him once in the mirror of a crowded dressing room.  Young, devout, in love, unshakeable in his faith that the Force would always guide and save.  He’d been the chief soloist, that year the dancers toured across Jedha and performed in Ringdhan, in the mountains, and along the shore of the Dried Sea, at Ni-Yen and Ni-Samdha.  He’d danced the heroes and queens, angels, warrior knights; all the roles of light and beauty, with his brothers of the troupe flawless in unison around him.

Tonight Baze Malbus will dance alone, and in every role, the heroic and the cruel, wise elder and innocent child.  All the characters of the tale of Karantali must find expression in his one pair of hands, so old, so long unpractised.

He can hear Jyn’s voice outside, low but audible; she’s asking Chirrut to wish him luck.  Bless the girl for coming.  Tonight is for the Jedhans on base and the rituals won’t mean a thing to anyone else, yet as Midwinter approached he’d realised how many others were moved by the preparations to restage a traditional festival, to honour its memory with light in Hoth’s long darkness.  He has a feeling that when he looks out over his audience, he’ll see not only Jedhan faces, but also Alderaanian, Mon Cala, Lasat and many others.

Jyn’s still speaking: “…and so Cassian and I made this, I hope it’s okay, we’ll understand if he’d rather not use it of course.” She sounds hesitant, a thing so unusual in her that he straightens and looks towards the door with a frown.  Jyn, unsure? – Jyn nervous before him and Chirrut?  What in the stars?

Chirrut’s voice murmurs _Thank you_ , speaking softly and without teasing. 

“I’ll see you both there,” she answers quietly, and there’s a pause before the door bumps shut and Chirrut reappears. 

“It seems that the Captain and Jyn –“ and his voice is audibly emotional –“ have made you a gift.”

He holds out a fan.

It’s the right shape, with long metal struts and a simple pleated canvas neatly stitched to them.  The fixing rivet looks like a filed-down axel pin from the rear wheel of an MSE-6, and there’s a durasteel key-fob ring attached to it with a tassel of braided blue knitting wool. 

It isn’t made of silk, isn’t the traditional purple dye.  But Chirrut places the fan in his palm and it fits.  It _fits._

“Oh!” Baze says.  Words blunder round his head, stunning themselves like moths against the bright familiarity of this weight and shape.  He flicks the fan and it opens and closes, crisp and smooth with a rustle of struts gliding together.  It feels as right in his hand as the feel of Chirrut’s own hand. “Oh, how did they know?  How did they know to make it so -?  The weighting is perfect, the movement, Chirrut, look...”

Flick open, flick closed, every movement redolent of expression, drama, feeling.  His arm completed.

“Ah, my dear, did you sweet-talk them into making this for me?”

“Not I,” says Chirrut. “I am as surprised as you.”

“Perhaps Bodhi told them how…” Flick, flick.  It feels so good to have a proper dancing fan; so good, so _right_.  As though all the souls of his dead brothers are dancing beside him again, the beating of their feet echoed in the sound of the canvas pleats and gleaming struts gliding shut.  He drops it to swing by the tassel, tosses and catches it by the struts again.  Perfect. 

And with a fan – “Chirrut.  Chirrut!  I can do the whole story with this, not just the short version.  I can dance the Unwise Companions, and the Twelve-horned Fiery Bantha.  I can dance the Wedding scene!”

Such a gift; in a life that has held few such; to receive this one, now, moves him beyond all those fluttering words.  There are actual tears in his eyes. _Ah, my make-up.  I’m an old fool.  A man of fifty-three crying at the thought of dancing a piece created for adolescent boys to perform._  

Chirrut has picked up the blanket he’s been using as a mantle; he holds it up, wraps it round Baze’s shoulders. “Come then, let’s go and show our friends how their gift is to be used.  Come, my dancer, are you ready?”

“No,” Baze says wryly.

“Ah, hush.  Karantali was always your best role.  Your skill will ease the hearts of those who mourn, tonight.  Let’s go.”

Baze gives his reflection a last glance as they turn to go with arms round one another.  For a second he sees two skinny figures like lanky young men, sees gleaming toned bodies and bright eyes.  Behind them in the shadowed room, for a moment there seems to be a whole group of dancers reflected; costumed, poised, ready. 

A trick of the light, and the paired ‘fresher mirrors; it’s only his usual self, him and his unshakeable love. 

He presses the fan to his breast in a salute, and follows Chirrut.


End file.
